Ava: Thomas, I have faith in you
by shivakantha
Summary: For the first time ever, Ava has been outsmarted. She has manipulated The Right Arm to the very end, manipulated every change in plans to the betterment of the world. But for the first time ever, she has been outsmarted by a man named Janson, and in a way that is lethal to the survival of the human race. And Ava can't have that. (The Death Cure (alternate ending), Ava Paige POV)
1. Chapter 1

Ava just couldn't believe it.

She had been outsmarted. By Assistant Director Janson.

Ava Paige, who had controlled the Right Arm's activities till the very end. Ava Paige, who had utilised Thomas's shoulder-wound as an advantage to WICKED's goals. Ava Paige, who had utilised every change in plans to benefit WICKED's goals directly. Right under the nose of this Ava Paige had Janson been capturing Immunes to repeat the Trials. Right under the nose of this Ava Paige had Janson messed with Subject A2's Swipe. Right under the nose of this Ava Paige had Janson messed with Subject A5's Phase-III trial. Right under the nose of this Ava Paige had Janson … put in place _some_ 'Final Candidate' nonsense, and who had a clue as to what that was about?

Brenda - she had been mislead into mistaking Janson's decisions for Ava's. And Katie Wright! She had turned out to be a spy for Janson all along!

And Ava's own actions recently. How she had desperately plugged in a ' _WICKED is good_ ' message to Subject A2's brain in the hope that that would change his mind. Of course it didn't work. How she had charged into Janson's room, unarmed, _demanding_ an answer regarding the whole 'Final Candidate' business.

And now Ava was stuck in this room with twenty Launchers trained on her.

But Ava was never defeated. Ava couldn't _be_ defeated.

"Why do you work for Janson?" Ava inquired at the guard before her - his nametag read 'Gage'. "Doesn't it have any mark on your conscience?"

"I'm serving no one but myself," Gage replied. "Janson's promised me a lot."

"Do you believe him? Do you truly believe him? What resources could Janson obtain from this ravaged world?"

"Enough resources for me."

Ava turned her chair around to face him. "There are billions of people in this world, Gage. It is impossible for a man like you to have much power in this world. But what if there weren't as many people in this world?"

Gage leaned in. "What are you getting at?"

"There is a backdoor plan," Ava supplied. "And this involves sending a small population of Immunes that WICKED has access to, to a safe place, as the rest of the world is driven to extinction." In truth, Ava had no intention of sending this selfish asshole to Vaidehi. She would have to find a way to get rid of these guards later.

"And … ?" the guard pressed.

"Think of how much political power one man could hold in a world with five hundred people. True that the population would increase over the years, and that it should. But over your lifespan, how much would it grow? The place we will be sending you to will be rich in resources. You will lead a comfortable, no - _powerful_ life there."

Gage exchanged a glance with another guard, then another. Murmurs broke out, then nods.

"What do you want?" Gage asked.

"Just let me free, and I'll lead you to freedom," Ava replied. "Follow me, and crush the opposition, and I'll lead you to freedom."

And so the guards followed her out, fatally shooting any of Janson's workers in the way. They found Janson walking out of an operation theatre.

"So here we meet again, Janson," Ava said calmly as her guards surrounded the Assistant Director. "Now tell me. What's this Final Candidate business about?"

Janson's face paled with horror. He turned to face the guards. "Is this what I get … for all I've done for you? You can't do this to me."

"Answer my question, Janson," Ava ordered. "Or you'll have a nice interrogation session."

"We're taking his brain," Janson stammered out.


	2. Chapter 2

Ava knew how to use this situation to the advantage of the human race.

And so she did.

A short letter explaining the current situation, and a map of the WICKED headquarters with routes and instructions marked. Thomas had the Swipe removed, which meant the irrationality would come to an end soon. Janson's plans had included Brenda getting Thomas to trust Ava, and it was time to make use of that.

Her guards forced the surgeon to expel the sedatives from Thomas's body, before shooting the surgeon dead.

As Thomas stirred in his unconscious state, Ava called for him. "Thomas." She repeated the highest Elite's name over and over again, until Thomas was off his bed and moving towards her.

"Thomas, I have faith in you," she said, and it was true - she had faith that Thomas would do the right thing now, and eventually, once the Swipe wore off.

Ladena Lichliter came running up to her. "You're not the only one manipulating the Right Arm," she said.

Ava's eyes shot up in surprise. No, not Janson …

"Janson," Ladena breathed. _Well, crap._ "And they're planting explosives in the WICKED headquarters. The few guards I've gotten on our side … they're trying their best to disable them, but the Right Arm and Janson combined have more workers."

Ava pinched the bridge of her nose. "Okay, listen. Destroy Janson's defences around the Group A Maze. And make sure the Right Arm does not reach the Backdoor. Take Jonathan Maldoon along with you to open the Backdoor for the Immunes to pass." Jonathan Maldoon was Ava's most trusted colleague, and the only one apart from herself who knew how to operate the Backdoor Flat Trans.

Ladena gave her a quick nod, but before leaving, she said one last thing: "Jonathan Maldoon says the Elite have a backup Swipe in them. If you want to control Thomas to counter Janson's plans, the password to enable it is _)130[114=041\515}14C|B_."

Ava memorised the password in her head, quickly realising it was partially formed out of the word 'Maldoon'. The Right Arm's explosives meant that many of the Immunes wouldn't make it to the Backdoor. 500 was considered the minimum base population size to grow a long-term human civilisation. If that many didn't make it, they would have to continue sending more Immunes into Vaidehi. And this couldn't be done if the Immunes decided to seal the Flat Trans.

So Ava reactivated Thomas's backup Swipe, and made contact to Brenda's - that girl didn't even know she had the Swipe inside of her - before sending a single message into his head, repeated several times, and with conviction:

 _Never close the Flat Trans. Ever._


	3. Chapter 3

Ava revisited the rubble of the WICKED headquarters. Her guards' efforts ensured the building still retained its basic frame, and the maintenance room, in particular, only suffered the damage of impact from faraway explosions. She quickly hid the Flat Trans behind a bookcase - the best she could do right now. She had to trust the Immunes to protect their paradise.

Ava's eyes scanned the casualties in the maintenance room. A bloodstained rock - whoever was crushed by that piece of ceiling had probably been rescued, and hopefully had survived. About half a dozen WICKED guards, and … Janson?

There was no way Janson could have personally tried capturing the Immunes. Something was wrong about this, and needed further analysis. Ava ordered her guards to carry the body to the hospital facilities, as Ava went to visit Newt. He was obviously the best person to relay the concentrated Grief Serum to Thomas. Chuck would have done, too, but his innocence might have lead to him being thought of as naïve or mislead.

"The bloody … " was her son's first words when he rose from the bed. "There's a bloody afterlife? In a shuck hospital?" Newt squinted at Ava. "You … I've seen you before."

"I'm _Ex-_ Chancellor Ava Paige," Ava supplied, putting special emphasis on the _Ex_.

Newt's face paled. "Chancellor … of WICKED?! I'm supposed to be dead! I'm supposed to be bloody _dead_! Tommy shot me! I made him shoot me! I'm shucking dead! And I'm a Crank–"

"Calm down, Newton," Ava interrupted. "Whoever shot you, they cured you. And the bullet was stopped by the Flare's cocoon."

Understanding and surprise flashed across Newt's face. Along with joy? And gratefulness? "The bullet saved me from the Flare, and the Flare saved me from the bullet. Bloody interesting."

"Pretty much," Ava conceded, stifling a laugh - with the gruesome trials out of the way, she no longer had to keep hiding her emotions. "You are a special case of a non-immune, because both your biological parents were immune. The Flare's cocoon is relatively easily separable from the Killzone, and it doesn't cause irreparable damage to the brain."

"Where are my friends?" was Newt's response, completely ignoring everything Ava had just told him.

"They've been sent to a safe place, unaffected of the Flare and of the solar flares. Would you like to join them?"

"Yeah," Newt replied, but his voice didn't contain the enthusiasm Ava would have expected.

"Would you like your memories back?" _We're giving it back to you no matter what, so you might just as well do it willingly_. And he would - his brain was being manipulated right at that instant, to make him want to have his memories back.

"Why should I trust you?"

Ava thought about what she could say. "If it helps, because I saved your life, and because the rest of your friends trust me. WICKED is finished, Newton. We couldn't find a cure." Maybe a vaccine, though … "It's in the news. The Trials are over. And the other reason… the other reason you'll find out upon getting your memories back. I think you should learn for yourself, son." She added the last word to hint to him what their relationship had been, before. To give him a hint as to what that last reason could have been.

And Newt caught the hint. "Son?"

"Would you like your memories back?" Ava pressed, ignoring the question. He would understand after getting his memories back.

"Yeah."

After sending Newt to Vaidehi that night, Ava watched as the few psychs left with her performed the final therapies on Chuck and Rachel. And that was when Ladena Lichliter came running into the room.

"Janson … " she breathed, "He's not dead."

Ava rose from her seat. "What?" was all she said, her voice completely calm and controlled.

"The body you brought … it isn't Janson," Ladena explained. "It's a look-alike. The Flare set into him much earlier than it did with Janson. Janson's alive, and he's plotting to access your Backdoor. Rumour is, he's working with The Right Arm."

After a long pause, Ava spoke. "Call a Board Meeting."

 **Author's note:**

 **After this, the story continues to The Second Chance [s/11419764].**


	4. Chapter 4

**Author's note:**

 **I wasn't planning on it, but I ended up posting another chapter. (Note: this fanfic was initially titled "Outsmarted").  
**

 **If you find Ava's thoughts weird, you should know it's the intended effect. You'll understand ... in a future sequel, The Paradise War (see my profile - under the heading "My fanfic series" at the bullet point "My One True Series").**

Ava spent the rest of the day recounting her life.

Eva Nox. That had been her original name. It had been when she'd begun playing with her own mind, her moral ideologies, the specifications of her brain's software, developing and installing tools to improve her capabilities … She'd come so many years since then, from being a horrendously powerful pawn for the propagators of Kaine - a more powerful pawn than they'd ever have wanted. Not even her most trusted associate, Jonathan Maldoon, knew of her secrets.

Eva Nox had been a nice name. Maybe for a mountain-climbing medic.

But Ava was not a mountain-climbing medic. Ava had needed a name that screamed authority, that screamed steadfastness and honesty. Ava Paige had been that name.

She'd spent decades working to protect the human race to the best of her abilities, because she could. With her powerful hacking and social engineering skills, she'd come a long way.

When WICKED had been formed to cure the Flare, she'd known she could help. And she had. She'd done it in a way so perfect, that nobody could have hoped for a better administration of the project.

But Ava knew better. Ava knew she'd made mistakes. That she was more naive than most people thought. Or she could have stopped the Trials - saved so many resources, so many lives. And not just of the Trial subjects - they could've found the Vaccine earlier. She should've checked the claims that the classical immunology tests had failed. Obviously, they hadn't, or the PFC would've compared the protein secretions from the Flare units among Immunes and Cranks, and found a vaccine for the Flare much earlier. Obviously, the Flare present in the Immunes was created as a kind of Failsafe. Katie McVoy's physical disappearance (making her only available virtually) days after the attack on the PFC (which also coincided with the discovery of Deedee, now Teresa, the first Immune to be discovered) made Ava suspicious, that she'd been assassinated.

Ava had gone as far as to the PFC Vice Chancellor's login histories, and determined that her suicide was right before the automatic logout mechanism would be activated on her goddamn email account. Which meant someone had assassinated her and taken over her email account, and used the suicide excuse so her virtual presence wouldn't simply disappear without explanation.

These attackers on the PFC were merely pawns, and had nothing to do with the founding of WICKED. They had somehow been bribed with something petty, their mental instability made use of. Ava knew what it all meant.

Some of the founding members of WICKED had been using the world's apocalyptic scenario to their personal advantage. They founded WICKED, because they knew it would give them a stable source of income - and worse, the resource diversion. Ava suspected it was Peter Lombard, whose scams she had unearthed once she became Chancellor. But who cared? The man was long dead now, ever since the Purge. Only to be replaced by Janson.

Janson … they had to find a way to capture him and put an end to his dangerous activities. And that doppelganger business … it was unlikely Janson had found such a close look-alike. Had he cloned himself? Ava would find out.

But at least Ava and the rest had a plan now. The Vaccine Distribution Program had begun. Thomas had obtained his memories back, and was leading well. Ava and the rest had a plan to combat Janson.

She should've known that would be when everything would go wrong.

 **Author's note:**

 **Rat Man arrives. Oh well. At least we know there's a happy ending in the end.  
**


End file.
